


Intergenerational

by Broken_Clover



Category: Guilty Gear
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-29
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:41:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22961083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Broken_Clover/pseuds/Broken_Clover
Summary: Sol accidentally introduces his music tastes to little Sin
Comments: 2
Kudos: 28





	Intergenerational

As much as he knew that Ky would freak out if he knew, Sol could say with absolute certainty that he wasn’t a fan of playing babysitter. He was perfectly aware of the circumstances. He knew why it was necessary. He knew that Ky was counting on him. None of that changed the fact that he was sure that he’d been saddled with the most annoying brat on the face of the earth.

First and foremost, the thing seemed absolutely incapable of shutting up. Sure, children could be curious, but Sin took things further than he felt like they should have. It was virtually impossible to do anything without feeling a tiny little hand tap against his arm, immediately followed by a squeaky, high-pitched _‘why?’_ repeated ad nauseum until he could supply a satisfactory answer. Sin wanted to know damn near everything, but God help him if the brat could remember a single thing that he was told.

He’d been hoping that Sin would at least show a natural aptitude for magic like his father had, and he had been more than right- but he had no idea what he was doing, and his listening skills left something to be desired. Sin was prone to tossing lightning every-which-way, more likely to hit literally everything but the one thing he was aiming at. It was almost impressive.

And finally, what he would say with certainty was the little punk’s worst habit, was that he seemed physically incapable of calming down and going to bed.

“But I don’t wanna sleeeeep!”

Sol didn’t have enough hands to rub his aching temples and thump the kid over the head at the same time. Sin had the unfortunate drawback of having exponentially more energy than other children, so trying to run him ragged during the day so he’d go to sleep easier never worked. No matter what he did, he was stuck coaxing-slash-threatening Sin into laying down for the night.

“Listen, kid.” Sol attempted to reason with him again. “Gear or not, you need your sleep.”

“But _you_ get to stay up late!”

“Yeah, because I’m an adult. You’ll get to stay up late when you’re an adult, too. But you’re a kid, so shut the fuuu-rick up-” It wasn’t worth Sin parroting him at the worst possible moment and getting his nuts fried off by a pissed-off Ky, annoying as it was to censor himself around the kid. “So go to sleep.”

“No! I don’t wanna!”

Maybe he’d be able to convince Ky that Sin would be better off with only one arm. It would make it harder for him to swipe things he wasn’t supposed to play around with-

The little, imaginary version of Ky that he could never seem to shake sent him a dirty look. Sol contemplated flipping him off, but he didn’t need Sin thinking he was a total nutjob. So it seemed that he was going to be stuck playing by Ky’s rules in this situation. Which, conveniently enough, were the exact same situations where he nearly tore his hair out from sheer aggravation.

“Alright.” He gave Sin a level gaze. “What’s it gonna take to get you to go to sleep?”

“Mmmm…” Sin sat up in his kiddie-sized sleeping bag. “Sing me a song!”

A song? “Hell no.”

“Then I’m not gonna sleep!” The boy pouted, arms crossed. “I want music!”

“Now listen, you- music?” That gave him an idea. Sol got up and walked over to his rucksack by the fire. 

Sin watched him curiously when an odd black box was pulled out of the bag. “What’s that?”

“It plays music.” Sol had no interest in trying to explain the intricacies of black-tech and record-players to someone who couldn’t even tie their own shoes. He wasn’t exactly thrilled at the idea of using his precious music as a method of pacifying a stubborn child, but he couldn’t think of many more options. He set the device down near Sin’s bed and flipped a switch, letting the sound of distant chatter and fast guitar come through the speaker.

_“~Happy little day,  
Jimmy went away,  
Met his little Jenny on a public holiday~”_

“What’s this?” Asked Sin.

“Queen. ‘Brighton Rock.’” Sol replied gruffly. “You got your music, now go to bed.”

“Queen who?”

“Queen nobody. It’s just ‘Queen.’ That’s the name of the band.”

“Ohhh.” Sin still looked confused. But he rolled over and pulled his sleeping bag up to his ears. “G’night.”

Sol had hoped that that would be the end of it. Sin had fallen asleep halfway through the second song on the listing, so he’d shut it off and turned in for the night, too, and hoped that the whole thing would never come up again.

“Can you play more of the songs? Pleeeease?”

“Son of a…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, and tried to focus on turning over the chunks of deer meat that were poised above the fire. It wasn’t anywhere near bedtime, but Sol had managed to convince himself that the music wouldn’t come up again, as a sleep aid or otherwise. Maybe he should have been happy about sharing his favorite music with others, but it really just felt like exposing himself in a way he didn’t want to.

“Double-please! I didn’t get to finish one of them! I fell asleep before it was over!”

“Jeez, kid, what’s gotten into you?” Sol shook the kid off from where he was clinging onto his jacket. “Gotta be careful with old stuff, anyway. If you play it too many times, it’ll crack.”

Sin finally let go of him. “Really? How old is it?”

“Bought it back when the album first came out. 1974. Guess that’s...shit, past a hundred-fifty by this point. Somehow it’s still managed to stay in one piece.”

“Wooow…” Sin’s one uncovered eye was shining. “That’s a lot.”

That got a chuckle out of him. “No shit. I had some friends who couldn’t go six months without breaking a record.”

“So does that mean I can listen to it again?”

“No.” Damn this kid had a one-track mind. 

Sin decided that he wouldn’t be able to get anything out of Sol by just asking him. So instead he tried climbing on top of him, grabbing fistfuls of unkempt hair and attempting to find a foothold on his clothing.

“Pleeeease?”

“Jesus, kid, get off.” Sol left the food where it was and pulled his charge off, dumping him on the ground. “If I let you listen to something, will you stop?”

Sin immediately smiled. “Uh-huh! I wanna hear more!”

“Well, I’m not gonna play that one again, but I’ve got something else.”

Sol never thought much of singles. It seemed like a waste of a record to only have one song when you could cram a dozen or so into a single space. But, and he never thought he’d say this, but thank god for Axl, who somehow had managed to get one as a gift for him. He really had no idea how the hell he’d managed to get his little mitts on it in the first place, but Sol knew asking would only lead to trouble, so he’d simply taken it and went on with his day.

He pulled out his record player again and pulled out a different record. Sin peered over his shoulder, and extended a tiny hand towards it, making Sol hold it out of his reach.

“Who’s that?” The boy asked, pointing to the silhouette on the record sleeve. “Is that Queen?”

“That’s Freddie Mercury.” Sol replied, gingerly pulling the disc out and setting it into his player. “He’s the main singer. Best in the world.”

_“~Tonight, I’m gonna have myself a real good time  
I feel ali-i-i-i-ive~”_

“Whoaaaaa…” Sin managed to climb into his lap while he was distracted. Sol could feel him bouncing eagerly.

“If you’re gonna do that, you’re gonna sit still.”

Thankfully, he obliged. “Did you and dad listen to this when you were kids too?”

Sol scoffed. “How old do you think your dad is?”

_“I'm a shooting star leaping through the sky  
Like a tiger defying the laws of gravity  
I'm a racing car passing by like Lady Godiva  
I'm gonna go go go  
There's no stopping me~”_

“What’s a car?”

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Who’s-”

“Just. Listen.”

_“I'm burnin' through the sky yeah_  
_Two hundred degrees  
That's why they call me Mister Fahrenheit~”_

“Mr. Fan..ren...height?” Sin wore a look of realization. “It’s you!”

“Huh? The hell you talking about?”

“You’re all warm and hot, too! Like, a jillion degrees!” He wriggled in his lap for emphasis. “Mister Freddie musta wrote this song about you! You’re Mr. Fan-ren-height!”

_“I wanna make a supersonic man out of you~”_

“Huh.” Truth be told, Sol had been amused by the similarity, but he hadn’t expected Sin to be able to make the connection. Kid looked awful proud of himself, too.

Fortunately, it seemed like that was the last of his outbursts for a while. Sin was content to stay sitting, rocking back and forth to the song’s tempo. Maybe Sol was starting to understand why people liked children so much. They were kinda cute when they weren’t talking nonstop.

Maybe playing babysitter wasn’t as shitty as he was making it out to be.

“I'm havin' a good time, I don't wan- don’t wanna stop at aaaaaall!” Sin suddenly yelled, tossing his hands into the air enthusiastically as the song was reeling into a close. He looked up at his caretaker with an expectant look. “Was it good? Did I do good?”

“Yep.”

“Can I be as good a singer as Mr. Freddie when I get big?”

“Not a chance.” Sol replied, smirking a little. “Doesn’t mean you should stop trying, though.”

“Ah, ok!” He didn’t look at all discouraged. He hopped out of Sol’s lap. “I’m gonna practice more!”

“Oi, calm down, sparky. You can save that for later, alright? Don’t you want to eat dinner first?"

Of course, it hadn’t solved all of his problems. Sin proceeded to refer to him as nothing but ‘Mr Fahrenheit’ for almost two weeks, until Sol had threatened to drop him down a ravine. Hey, what Ky didn’t know wouldn’t kill him. It was the code he tended to live by nowadays.

At the very least, though, he could say that the kid had good taste in music.


End file.
